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The Watering Hole, Monday, October 5th, 2015: Mixed Bag Monday

Let’s start off with a bang: According to Foreign Policy magazine, the same idiots in Congress who tried to stop the Iranian Nuclear Agreement now want to ‘make it up to Bibi’ by giving Israel bunker busters. An excerpt from this excellently-written article by Jeffrey Davis:

Since the battle over the Iran deal was largely fought over the question of whether proponents loved Israel or not, both sides are talking loudly about providing the country with a big arms package. Those who supported the deal are eager to make it up to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while those opposed have to find ever more extreme proposals to prove they love Israel more.

This absurd competition — which is primarily about political posturing, not Israeli security — has reached an almost perfect level of absurdity. There is now a growing chorus of people arguing that the United States should give Israel the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — a huge conventional bunker-buster bomb — and a fleet of heavy bombers to drop it.

Israel’s air bases don’t even have runways that can accommodate heavy bombers, though apparently one base — Nevatim — could be modified.**

[**Personal note: the engineer for whom I used to work had earned the money that enabled him to buy a nice house and start his own business from a contract constructing the Negev Air Base runways.]

Next, let’s go back to the Pope’s meeting with Kim Davis. Although most news reports agree that the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., Carlo Maria Vigano, arranged the visit, so far none seem to have specifically asked or answered “Why?” Was it solely Reverend Vigano’s idea? Or – yeah, I’m the suspicious, cynical type – did someone with a stake in a Papal stamp of approval of Kim Davis and her ilk, someone perhaps running for the Presidency, arrange this very, very quietly? Yeah, I’m looking at you, Huckabee.

Only the Washington Post appears to be curious about the backstory of this now infamous meeting:

Church leaders in the United States and in Rome have been resolutely tight-lipped about the meeting, perhaps concerned about the prospect of appearing to publicly rebuke or challenge the pope, particularly on such a sensitive issue. At the same time, church-watchers have debated and swapped rumors about who set up the meeting, whether it was at the behest of the pope himself, or whether it was an idea pushed by other bishops or religious freedom advocates or donors.

Among those who declined to comment was the Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, at whose residence the meeting took place.

Rev. Thomas Rosica, an English-language spokesman for the Vatican, told the Associated Press. “And in the pope’s characteristic kindness and warmth and hospitality, he shook people’s hands and gave them rosaries. We should understand it as that. In terms of why this person was invited, you have to ask those questions of the nunciature.”

A controversial figure both in Rome and in the United States, Viganò has gone further than other church leaders in his campaign against same-sex marriage. Among other things, he appeared at an event this year with the National Organization for Marriage, a group that vocally opposes same-sex marriage and with which U.S. bishops typically don’t publicly ally.

And, of course, Liberty Counsel, and through them Kim Davis, are more or less calling Pope Francis a liar. According to Christian Today’s article, “Kim Davis denies Vatican account of her meeting with Pope, says she was invited”:

“Disturbed by statements coming from the Vatican, gay marriage nemesis Kim Davis would like to set the records straight that it was the Vatican that extended an “unsolicited invitation” for her to hold a “private meeting” with Pope Francis at the Vatican embassy in Washington D.C. last Sept. 24.

Liberty Counsel, the group representing Davis, said the Kentucky county clerk—who spent six days in jail for defying a court order for her to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples—had spoken with papal representative Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano before she met the Pope.

“This meeting was a private meeting. No other members of the public were present,” Liberty Counsel said.

Davis, accompanied by her husband Joe and lawyer Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, arrived in Washington on the night of Sept. 23, the Liberty Counsel statement said.

The following day, the Davis couple were met by people with “heavy Italian accents” who led them to the Vatican embassy.

“Kim and Joe Davis were placed in a room with no one else present. Later Pope Francis arrived with only Vatican or Embassy personnel and security,” the Liberty Counsel statement said.

“He stretched out his hands. Kim clasped his hands, and he asked her to pray for him. She said she would, and she asked the Pontiff to pray for her, to which he said he would.

“Pope Francis then thanked Kim for her courage. They embraced. The Pope said, ‘Stay strong.’ He then presented Kim and Joe with two rosaries. There was no line of people or other members of the public seen anywhere,” the statement said.

Liberty Counsel said the Vatican requested Davis to keep the meeting a “secret” until the following Tuesday.”

Really? In this particular case, I have to say that, since Liberty Counsel and Kim Davis are already proven liars, I tend to doubt their account of the “meeting”, which seems to be just another pathetic attempt to keep Liberty Counsel’s pet martyr for Christianity in the limelight. But I still want to know, who really arranged this on Davis’s behalf with the Papal Ambassador?

“The critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle is the first reptile scientists have seen exhibiting biofluorescence—the ability to reflect the blue light hitting a surface and re-emit it as a different color. The most common colors are green, red, and orange.”

What I find most fascinating about the Kim Davis – Pope Francis encounter is that Amurkkkan far right wingnut Christers are able, through subterfuge, lies, and fabrications, to make even a benevolent and genuinely Christian Pope look like some sort of sleazebag operator working to advance their hate- and fear-based politically theocratic agenda, one that’s the complete and total antithesis to genuine and tolerant Christianity. What a bunch of fucking bastards they are. America should bow her head in shame for having allowed the creation of what in essence could properly be called this Christer-Shariah movement.

Fascinating that so many are so ignorant and gullible as to fall for and subscribe to something so heinous that, should the word be “Muslim” be substituted for “Christer” they would freak out in horror — even though the respective goals of absolute power and control are identical.

Explains why I steadily and stalwartly continue to look forward to the sixth mass extinction’s completion.

Methinks Rev Vigano stepped in some serious shite…The Jesuits are after his tonsure
Salient quote from The Rev. James Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America
“I was very disappointed to see the pope having been used that way, and that his willingness to be friendly to someone was turned against him,”

By the bye, I’m a little confused at the use of the title “Reverend”: is that now an acceptable label for a Catholic priest? (I’ve always been under the impression that it was just and only for Protestant ministers.)

Dunno, Gary. I was surprised to see him referred to as “Reverend” in the articles that I read. I would have thought it should be “Ambassador” or at least a different ‘holy’ title. I think I remember also seeing that he has a brother who’s a Jesuit? I may be wrong.

The Oregon mass shooting suspect had access to so many guns because his mother had stockpiled them out of fear that firearms would be outlawed in the wake of all the mass shootings. Irony shoots itself.

And, as has become the usual outcome of such a case, the least qualified people in the country ran out within hours of the shooting to buy even more and deadlier guns because they are being told that “finally, Obama is going to take your guns”. This started even before he was elected in 2008 and gets cranked up even more every time a mass-shooting occurs.

If it didn’t make me so effing mad it would be funny to watch the whitey-righties twisting themselves in knots trying to blame everything but easy access to guns and their own unhinged paranoia for mass shootings but guess what? It does make me so effing mad and, once again, the RWEC created this tragedy as surely as if it had been Nugent or Gomer who snapped and opened fire on a crowd. They own it.

BOLLING: Here’s what happens with universal background checks, Geraldo, poor people, minorities in high crime urban areas, will have to make the choice between buying this gun to protect my family or feeding my family. Because sometimes it can be upwards of — in New York it’s $80, in Maryland it’s $200 just for the background check. People can’t afford to protect their own families; instead they decide not to buy the gun.

Really. Really. Never mind the poor have to choose between shelter and food – he’s worried they won’t have enough for an effen gun.